Strawberry Sticks
by rwbybomb21
Summary: First legit Crossover. It became clear to Ruby that her sister had been making her life Hell, but obviously she couldn't do a thing; her fall back plan? Green hair and pocky of course.


**Alrighty! This is a first for me...a crossover fic! RWBY and one of my favourite anime- when you get past the exposition of it all- Lucky Star! So much...so much...potential!**

 **Oh, yeah, going out of my comfort zone because this is based in a high school environment, and Ruby will be weak and won't be able to protect herself. Konata is a bully to her, and to make it worse- or weird- they're twins! Oh, side note; I'm making this a romance between Ruby and a character that is rarely ever used in Lucky Star fics.**

 **Also, just to mention, Ruby will have the combined attributes of both her canon self and Blake as well, considering who Blake is in this fic.**

 **Interested? Good, now sit your ass down and read the damn story!**

 **...please?**

 **Oh, because Japanese suffixes and the honorific stuff confuse me, all of the 'Chan' and 'San' and whatever else won't be in any of my fics...because I don't even know what they mean.**

 **Don't take that as disrespect, just...laziness, I guess.**

 **Any dudes or dudettes out there who want to help me understand it a bit better, PM me or leave a review.**

 **Well, enjoy!**

 **(^^^^^^)**

If there was one thing Ruby Izumi hated, it was that her sister Konata didn't know how to share; in all honesty neither did Ruby, but at least she had the decency to lend things out. Funny thing is she never got those things back.

One thing Konata never shared was her love for her friends; the second was actually her friends themselves.

Konata never did seem to like borrowing, but more of the fact that she was given something and expected to give it back when she was done with it; unfortunately for everyone around the Otaku, Konata didn't know the meaning of the word 'returning' and so kept everything she 'borrowed'.

Sitting here with nothing short of a scowl on her face, Ruby thought for a minute; would it be a good idea or a bad idea to tell her _dear_ sister of her relationship status? The Otaku was always telling her she should get a man. I mean, she may be the same age as her _dear_ sister, but Konata always saw her twin as the one to get a relationship first.

Funny thing is, she _was_ the one to get a relationship before her or the rest of her friends, but perhaps not in the way Konata envisioned...or, at least, not the gender she envisioned.

Her scowl, however, went unnoticed by said Otaku and said Otaku's friends, as they all blissfully sat away from her, leaving her sitting at a desk, alone, in the school lunch hall with nothing but a pocky stick idly flicking around her mouth. She loved pocky, strawberry being her favourite, but right now it tasted as sour as a lemon. She loved her sister so much it hurt, but Konata only hated her; once Konata came home frustrated, and when Ruby tried to cheer her up she got called rather...well, rather hurtful things.

She could hear their conversations- she was always so observant- with Konata beginning to talk about her in a rather...bad outlook; did she forget Ruby was sat only two tables away from her or something? _'Of course'_ , Ruby thought, _'My twin is the idiot that thinks watching anime and reading manga is an excellent source of education, the twin that thinks abusing your sister is a great way to pass the time. She doesn't even know I'm here'_.

"-I don't know why, but she always does." Konata had finished with her sentence, but Ruby was too caught up in her thoughts to hear any of it. _'I mean, I'm the oldest by a minute and a half, and I get treated like I'm not even related to her!'_

Tsukasa looked her way, frowning when Ruby simply stared back; the very look of indifference and calmness on her face, as always. Tsukasa smiled her direction, but frowned again when Ruby simply looked away, staring out of the nearby window. Idly Ruby noted that it was going to rain soon- good, she loved rain.

Tsukasa turned back, frowning at Konata. "I think she can hear you."

Konata tensed up, and slowly, ever so slowly to the amusement of Kagami and Tsukasa, the bluenette turned her head in the direction Ruby was; Ruby feigned interest, looking at her with only a mild look of indifference and a hint of sisterly love.

Konata instantly knew she fucked up.

"Aw, crap. Better go make peace..." The Otaku stood, her chair screeching backwards slightly as she moved it backwards, allowing for her to move a little more freely around the seat. She straightened her back, as if preparing for a war, and looked over at Ruby, who wasn't feigning interest now- she was genuinely confused at what Konata was going to do.

Konata took forceful steps towards Ruby, who was simply swinging the pocky stick around in her mouth; she didn't want to eat it, no, she preferred to keep it there as long as possible before it eventually began to crumble. Usually it took two or three hours, but it was a good thing she always had a bag of pocky with her at all times, just in case the one she ate broke away earlier than expected.

When the bluenette finally reached her, Ruby looked up at her with nothing but a smile; that was all she did for Konata, smile. She shared her things that she paid for- and never got back- and smiled a happy smile that always somehow radiated pure love for her sister.

"Yes, sister?"

Konata looked down at her and, with a defeated sigh, sat down next to Ruby. She wrapped an arm around Ruby's shoulders- Ruby's body tensed immediately at that- and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Play along."

Ruby knew that tone of voice, even if it was hushed; it promised her verbal, as well as a little physical, abuse if she didn't do as she was told. Ruby subtly nodded furiously, eyes wide in both fear and apprehension. What did Konata want now? Hadn't she already borrowed enough? she'd taken her happy emotions and twisted them into nothing but fear of her only other relative by blood- her cousin Yui and her father weren't the best, considering one drives like a lunatic and the other is as bad as Konata.

Speaking louder, Konata moved her head away from Ruby's, who was still stiff. "So, Whatcha doin'?"

Ruby changed her facial features to be that of an emotionless statue, eyes narrowed as if in boredom while the rest of her body stayed rigid. In truth she _was_ _bored_ ; she taught herself years ago that emotionless people got ignored, and it worked- for the most part anyway. It wasn't as if she wanted to be ignored, anyway, she just wanted to be loved. But that was the way the world worked. "Just staring at the sky."

Konata wasn't expecting the truth that Ruby seemed to possess in her voice; in all honesty she was expecting some sort of elaborate lie like 'I was scouting for pretty boys' or something along such lines of stupidity. Ruby seemed to be genuinely staring at the sky, and so with a shrug, Konata left Ruby alone, standing and patting her back.

Ruby winced; Konata pat her a little too _hard_ , but the only one to notice her wince seemed to be Miyuki. The pink haired, bespectacled almost-woman frowned, but said nothing, her face returning to that cheerful, oblivious smile the next second. Her cousin, Minami, would want to hear of this; she won't be happy, even if she had the emotional range of a stone golem.

Oh yes, she knew of Ruby and Minami's... _relationship_ , but she wasn't willing to publicly divulge any information. Especially to Konata, who wasn't the best at hiding her abuse of the redheaded seemingly emotionless girl. She didn't envy the poor wretch, in fact she hated what Ruby had to go through; but, as she knew, interfering was something she couldn't do. It just wasn't her place.

Turning when she heard the doors open, she saw the mint haired Minami walk through the double doors that led to the main area of the Food Hall.

' _Minami, if Ruby tells you anything please don't kill Konata...well, not in a way you could get caught.'_ Miyuki couldn't help but picture Minami emotionlessly tearing apart a screaming Konata while Ruby just swirled a pocky stick around her mouth in that ever-present bored manner that she seems to have.

Ruby visibly perked up when Minami walked through the doors, and Minami seemed to make a Bee-line for Ruby's desk. Konata waved a lazy hand and said 'hey' but Minami had a bad feeling that she'd done something today, so she ignored it in favour of walking past her.

Arriving at the black and redheaded girl's table, Minami leaned down and scooted into place next to Ruby. When no one was looking, Minami grabbed the pocky stick from Ruby's mouth and gently pulled it out, finding no resistance; she smiled inside, outwardly unable to do so properly without it seeming as a grimace or a small, sad looking smile that made her seem as if she pitied the girl.

Ruby simply seemingly pulled another one out of thin air and placed it in her mouth, her lips trying to contain a smile; it worked for the most part, coming out as a small, very small smile, her lips moving past the thin line they were and curving ever-so-slightly upwards.

"Hey Minami." Ruby's voice was seemingly distracted, but in truth, she was hiding her emotions. If Konata got wind that she had more emotions than she let on, she might actually pay more attention to her- she didn't like attention...well, unless it was Minami's attention, that is; then she loved it. "I missed you."

Minami smiled outwardly, her lips curling into a small smile like Ruby's. Outwardly they had the emotional ranges of fish, but inwardly they were the most emotional out of everyone.

Minami's small smile dropped, but her voice conveyed the emotion her face couldn't. "I missed you too..." she looked over to the table her cousin's friends were at, and frowned seeing not one of them spare a glance. She knew Yuki did though...Yuki always seemed to spot things far away that others couldn't see, but didn't see the things right in front of her that others could. That was probably why she walked into things so often; she was too busy focusing on everyone else, and everything around her, instead of everything in front of her.

The bell went, but as usual Ruby had finished all of her work for every class, so she just sat there staring at the sky. Minami hadn't, but she decided that she could catch up later; the teacher knew of her absence anyway- having a genius cousin and being a genius yourself, plus dating a genius smarter than you had its perks.

Within a few minutes the entire hall was empty save for the sound of Ruby tapping her left index finger on the table beneath her hand, drumming a beat without rhythm. She used to hum a tune as well, and oh how Minami missed those days, but alas Ruby simply couldn't. Humming was a form of emotion, a spectrum of the emotional range she did not possess.

Ruby looked down when she saw something move outside the window, and recognised the figure sitting on the fence just outside the school, staring at her with almost sad yellow eyes. Ruby waved at it, and the cat lifted its paw as if to wave back.

Ten minutes of silence later, and Minami finally turned to see Ruby. She let her cold mask slip, her face as emotional as she could get it, and stared at Ruby with all the warmth in the world. Her face looked sad, as though she'd just witnessed a child cough up blood and knew what it meant; they'd have to go to hospital because of some damage to their internal organs, and then be given a fifty-percent chance of survival. Oddly she found herself relating her own looks to that in medical terms, but didn't let it bother her. Minami just figured it was a part of her duties with the high school's nurse's aide position that she was in currently, though she figured the nurse herself would force her to go and do something else pretty soon, socialise and whatnot.

Ruby spotted the look from the reflection in the window she was looking out of, and simply leaned back into Minami's open arms.

Not a word was said for the next two hours, the secret lovers just staring out of the window, watching the world go by; Ruby still had the pocky stick in her mouth, but for some reason, in Minami's presence...Well, it tasted all that much sweeter.

She had a feeling it would only get better.

(^^^^^^)

When you think of an expression that suits an event, you'd come up with, undoubtedly, some form of fruit or vegetable pun along with it. If not, then you just weren't in the right situation.

With said expression you begin with _'when...'_. Following said word you would try and try so very, very hard to come up with something that would sound cool or crafty, something that only you could come up with and something that you hope would spread like wildfire throughout the school, and later, social media.

It would become a metaphorical game of cat and mouse; you chasing the words around your head while they constantly escape your mental grasp. You'd sprint in circles for an hour in your brain, wracking it for something you've heard before.

And then it hits you.

You don't _want_ it to start with _'when...'_ because that would then turn into _'when...life gives you lemons':_ A pointless expression that is somehow, and for some reason, still used to this day to describe nearly every situation. But then you can't think of anything else, anything cooler than that, and so you play it off in the most nonchalant way possible.

You shrug, you tilt your head to the side as if you don't care, and you simply say offhandedly. "Well...when life gives you lemons an' all that."

Or...at least that's what Yang Xiao Long did as she stared at the wooden door in front of her. She couldn't afford to seem brainless, at least not in front of her new best friend, anyway. A best friend she hadn't even met with and had only chatted with a couple of times through social media...and Skype, but that wasn't the point.

Ruby Izumi was a...special case to her; she was secluded yet wasn't depressed, was emotionless yet was only hiding her emotions. It was something that seemed far too interesting to ignore.

That's why she chose to live at her home for a year as a foreign exchange student from America. I mean, sure she may have a Chinese fore and surname, but that doesn't make her Chinese. She had a Chinese mother, an American father, but, consequentially, she was born in America, making her _American_... _Not_ Chinese...

...but right now, it was far too confusing. So, clutching her now sore head in one hand and knocking on the Izumi household door with the other, her suitcases behind her on the concrete floor, Yang was preparing for a new life with a Japanese family. Good job she brushed up on her Japanese. It may not be the best, but it was...well, it was _something_. Not bad, but not good either. A mixture of broken and perfect; or as Yang would call it, "meh".

Immediately the door opened, and the girl in front of her was, who Yang guessed to be, Ruby Izumi. Small, about five foot four, with red and black hair and dull grey eyes. Skin akin to a ghost's, arms and legs as thin as paper, pocky stick hanging out of her lips...yep, this was Ruby.

Yang cleared her throat, preparing some of her 'kick ass' Japanese, but instead Ruby was the one to surprise her with some rather good English. In fact, Yang would have mistaken her for an English speaker at first, if not for the fact that she knew Ruby was Japanese.

It was all very confusing for the tall blonde.

"Hi, Yang...You're late." Ruby looked behind the blonde with nary an emotion; even in front of her 'best friend' she couldn't show emotion. She just...didn't feel like she could with someone that isn't the school councillor, Minami, Yuki or her pet cat. "You brought your bike."

Yang nodded, too dumbstruck that she was actually in front of this emotionless girl she come to calling her best friend. Shaking her head, she bowed, trying but failing to remember the greetings that Japanese have.

Ruby just shook her head and tapped Yang on the forehead, a lock of blonde hair falling in front of her violet eyes. "You don't have to bow; I'm assuming you've forgotten the customs?"

Yang stood tall, finally finding her words. "Yeah..."She placed a leather gloved hand behind her head, looking sheepish but not in the least bit sorry. "I...kinda forget things like that a lot."

Ruby simply nodded; face stoic and eyes bored-looking. "Yes, I do that as well, considering I myself am Japanese." She paused for a moment, the awkward air of tension slowly evaporating, but not completely leaving. Yang was fidgeting with a lock of golden hair, her bags and motorbike all but forgotten. Idly Ruby had thought that she was running low on pocky, so she'd have to retreat back into the house in about two or three hours to retrieve another box.

After a tense minute, Ruby looked at Yang with a tilted head, her pocky stick slipping from the left side of her mouth to the right. "Is my English bad?"

Yang jumped, not expecting her to say anything. "Uh...no, actually it was pretty good, but maybe a bit too formal." Another minute passed by, agonisingly long for Yang while Ruby just stared at the sky. "So...can I come in?"

Ruby looked down from the sky at Yang, looking behind her. Deciding that she didn't really care, Ruby simply shrugged her shoulders, turning around and walking with her hands in her pockets as she made her way through the door to the interior of the house.

Yang scrambled for her suitcases and bike keys. Ensuring everything was there, the Xiao Long decided to follow her extremely cool friend in.

Yes, Yang would admit she found Ruby to be extremely cool. In fact, so cool she may have developed a little bit of a...fan girl thing for the little redhead.

But as she walked in, she saw something that shook her 'Ruby is awesome' foundations of belief.

Konata.

She knew of the little blue haired devil; Ruby was, in fact, very descriptive in her talks about Konata. What she would do to her, how she would vent frustration by using Ruby as some sort of stress relief. It was, to Yang, quite sickening, but right now her very belief that Ruby was awesome was being shaken.

Konata looked at her with the same bored expression Ruby had, but unlike Ruby, Konata smiled: A lazy smile, but still a smile. That's more than what Ruby would do.

Then the little girl frowned, and before Yang knew it, Konata was clutching her rather bountiful chest and whining like some sort of dog. "How come even American chicks have bigger boobs than me?!" the blue haired Otaku frowned, then pouted and completed her tantrum by crossing her arms. Yang would have thought it was cute, had she not just been humiliated and practically violated by her new housemate.

As the little blue demon ranted to her father- who was oddly having a nosebleed with stars in his eyes- Yang scurried over to Ruby, who was already halfway up the stairs leading to the second floor of the home. A minute later and Yang had gotten rid of her blush, successfully followed her best friend to her room, and was already beginning to pack her things into the provided wardrobe and clothing cupboards: That was when she saw Ruby walk in the room and set down a mattress in the middle of the room, and then throw a blanket and pillow on there as well.

"Umm, Ruby, what are you doing?"

Ruby turned her head to look at Yang over her shoulder, her body tense but her face still bored and relaxed. She had the same pocky stick from earlier dangling in her mouth, and Yang wondered how Ruby could keep it from slipping from her lips or crumbling.

"I'm preparing to sleep in my bedroom."

Yang's violet eyes widened in glee, and she squealed so loud she figured Konata could hear it from her own room; she didn't really care about the little blue midget though.

"We're sharing your room!?"

Ruby nodded, obviously not getting why it was such a big deal. "Yes. You, me and Blake will be sharing this room for the year that you are here." As she said this, Ruby slipped underneath the sheets of the mattress-bed in the middle of the room's floor.

Yang looked confused at to who the new addition to their room was, but as if something read her mind, a small black cat, lean and well groomed, walked in almost tiredly. Its yellow eyes shifted to Yang, and widened a moment before shrinking back into their tired state.

Ruby lifted the blanket of her self-made bed, the cat almost immediately shooting under the sheets and rubbing against Ruby, the cat's head just beneath the girl's chin.

Yang just looked at her watch, questioning why Ruby and the cat were going to sleep so- "Oh my god it's ten fifty!"

Darting beneath her bed, she heard the cat release an amused purr, and growled at it quietly, aware that Ruby was somehow already asleep. "Quiet you."

The cat hissed, as if challenging the blonde to do something, before snuggling closer to its master and falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

Yang lay beneath the black and red sheets of the provided bed looking up at the ceiling in thought- everything seemed to be black and red in this room. Hell, even the cat was black and had red tips in its fur.

She simply rolled over to her left side, staring at where Ruby was asleep.

"Yeah, Japan is pretty cool."

But just then, her eyes widened in wonder. "Wait, did Ruby go to sleep with a pocky stick in her mouth...?

(^^^^^^)

' _I wonder what's for lunch today'_ was the collective thought of Ruby, Yang and Minami, who all sat together at the desk Ruby would usually sit in during lunch times in school.

Yang had been getting herself acquainted with the school and even made some friends; Kagami and Tsukasa, the 'temperature twins' as Konata had called them- Yang got it a little; Tsukasa was warm and friendly and Kagami was cold and grumpy. That didn't explain though why everyone seemed to ignore Ruby, but Tsukasa seemed to be polite enough to her. Miyuki was a good friend of hers and she'd only been in Japan for two weeks; their dislike of Konata's treatment of Ruby and their shared distaste of their own large assets gave the two a friendly bond that seemed nigh impossible to break.

Minami though seemed to be the oddest one, aside from Ruby of course; though Ruby, in Yang's eyes, was the sort of odd that was way too cool to ever be considered odd, and thus not odd...if that made sense. It sure didn't to Yang, anyway.

Minami was something of a special thing to Ruby, something that Ruby seemed to welcome with almost open arms. Minami, also with emotions rivalling a bored statue, actually smiled around Ruby. That was when Yang thought there was something going on between the two- cousins? No, Yang had already met Yutaka and Yui, and both were, certifiably, nuts. Yutaka had some obsession with Konata, nearly worshipping her older cousin, while Yui drove like a street racer on crack with one eye and a bad case of lack of direction.

Could they perhaps be childhood friends? Again, that theory was shot down like a helicopter over a no-fly zone; wow, Yang needed to work on her metaphors, that one was a tad bit morbid. According to Konata and Ruby herself, Ruby had no childhood friends, preferring to keep away from people who would never be able to bond with her on a friendly level.

...Lovers? Now... _that_ was something actually possible. Yang could see it, what with their inability to smile when with someone other than each other, and their lack of social skills. She could also see how they would bond, or even meet in the first place; a visit to the nurse's office for Ruby to have some bruises checked out after Konata got a little too 'hands on', Minami and Ruby's bored, expressionless eyes locking, widening and then, they made love like horny rabbits in mating season.

Yang shook her head, blonde hair swivelling with it, causing Ruby to stop staring out the window to see what she was doing.

Yang's mind, needless to say, was a very dirty place.

After waving Ruby off with a smile, Yang went back to her original point; she could see those two in some sort of 'more-than-friends' relationship, hell, you'd have to be blind not to! Leaning over, capturing both Ruby and Minami's attention, she whispered as low as she could. "Does Konata know?"

Ruby took but a second to realise that she and Minami had been found out, Minami taking a second longer, and only realising when she saw Ruby's jaw tighten. "No, and we intend to keep it a secret."

Yang simply leaned back, her head resting in front of her crossed arms, her school uniform riding upwards slightly to reveal her bellybutton and toned stomach as she did so. "Lips are sealed."

Ruby then surprised her by looking at Yang with something other than a bored face; it seemed to be some form of grateful look, and she could see the beginnings of a smile being held back. "Thank you, Yang."

Minami however refused to hide her grateful look, her smile sincere and eyes curved upwards in the beginnings of an eye-smile. "Yes, thank you Yang." A moment passed before Minami looked at her oddly. "Are you not disgusted?"

"Should I be?"

At that, Ruby had to really try to hide her smile.

Yes, with friends like these, her pocky would taste _much_ sweeter.


End file.
